The present invention generally relates to apparatus for cleaning floors, particularly to floor cleaning apparatus which applies cleaning solutions to the floor and then vacuums the soiled cleaning solutions from the floor, and specifically to floor cleaning apparatus which applies and vacuums cleaning solutions from either hard or soft floor surfaces.
Many buildings have both hard and soft floor surfaces such as tile floors in high traffic and/or work areas and carpet in office and/or business areas. Apparatus for maintaining hard and soft floor surfaces are of differing types and prior to the present invention, separate apparatus were required. If the size of the area of any particular type of floor surface did not Justify the capital costs for apparatus utilized for maintaining the particular type of floor surface, that floor surface type was often cleaned manually, sporadically, or not at all. Likewise, other factors such as lack of storage space prevented purchase and/or use of separate apparatus for hard and soft floor surfaces.
Thus, a need exists for an apparatus which can be utilized on both hard and soft floor surfaces such that separate apparatus are not required. Additionally, such an apparatus should be operable in either mode substantially in the same manner of operation as prior separate apparatus. Further, such an apparatus should be easily converted between different modes of use and result in substantial cost savings over having both, separate types of floor surface cleaning apparatus.